Wolfgang Brolley continues to explore the glide ratio and how to keep going for the long haul.
Short and sweet, folks. Physical activity has direct benefits for preventing age-related dementia (links and references at www.yourbrainmatters.au.org). Think about it: your brain (a mere 3% of your body mass) requires more than 20% of all the Oxygen you breathe in. In spite of the brain being located just behind your nose, that Oxygen still has to go into your lungs, and lock onto your red blood cells before it’s of any use to any part of your body. And in order for it to reach your brain, that blood has to be PUSHED to the highest point in your body. God neglected to put a blood sucker at the base of our brain, so our poor little heart has to pump an average of 1.3 gallons of blood up to and through our brain every MINUTE!
Side note – if you inhale any kind of smoking product, the accompanying carbon monoxide bonds preferentially to the red blood cells – and stays attached for longer – than oxygen. Put that shit out!
Gravity (except in bizarre roadside shacks in rural Arkansas) never takes a day off – it is pulling your blood down away from your brain and making your ankles puffy 24/7 365! And all that blood pooling in your pudgy lower extremities has to get back to your heart by means of the venous system. But…. the venous system is a passive return – it is by our muscles pumping that the blood in our veins gets squeezed (and thanks to the design committee we have valves in our veins that prevent back flow) and pushed up, back to our heart. And therein is the problem – we get more sedentary as we age, and simultaneously those little venous valves don’t work as well. Less muscles pumping less forcefully, and more leaks in the veins (yup, that’s what those ropy varicose veins come from), and our central computer is starting to get a little O2 deprived.
The irony is that those puzzles with all the boxes – sudoku, crossword, etc. – they just might be “dementing” you. That’s because they are keeping you seated.
Get up!
Move!
Squat!
Do 10 burpees!
Feel smarter? Keep lifting, pumping, exercising, you will be!
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